<p>"The heads of a dozen private colleges are waiting for the final draft of a letter they will probably sign and send within the next few weeks to their counterparts at 570 or so small to midsize schools asking whether they would be willing to pull out of the U.S. News survey, stop filling out part of it, stop advertising their ranking or, most important, help come up with more relevant data to provide as an alternative. Says an early draft: "By acting collectively, we intend to minimize institutional risk and maximize public benefit." Translation: We can't afford to go solo." </p>
<p>I think that is an interesting idea, although I do use the rankings in the college search for my son and some of my students. What I find the rank useful for, however, is crossing off schools that are too hard to get into for particular kids! Like, I would not tell an 82 student with 1100 SATs (old score) to apply to Wesleyan, which was a school I was not familiar with before I did research on it! :)</p>
<p>Although it would be unethical and smack of collusion, it would be interesting to see what USNews would do if all 570 colleges gave the lowest possible peer ranking to the ten highest ranked colleges above them.</p>
<p>And USNews has changed its "formula". I thinked CalTech was ranked number one once and USNews changes its formula to "correct that error". Gaming the system? Hum.</p>
<p>I have never seen an college president or admissions dean support the USNews ranking or have anything good to say about its substance. Yet many of these same officials are at colleges who trumpet their "ranking" in promotioal literature. The OP article does address this small hypocracy.</p>
<p>However the data USNews assembles is good for prospetive students-things like acceptance rates, sat scores, class size, peer rating(ever so grudgingly)etc. Now if they would just list the colleges alphabetically or in ascending/descending orders on their web site which I think paid users are able to do.</p>
<p>"The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings." -- Peter O'Toole as Henry II in The Lion in Winter.</p>
<p>I'd LOVE to see it happen. Read about what happened to Reed and the unethical slant USN&WR is currently taking against Sarah Lawrence College (threatening to arbitrarily assign them stats (which will plummet SL's ranking) if SL decides to withdraw and not submit its own).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030901836.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030901836.html</a>
<a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/12/usnews%5B/url%5D">http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/12/usnews</a></p>
<p>Hypocrisy? Who's to blame for it though? If you're a mid-tier school, you've got to do all you can, even if you hate the environment you're forced to operate under. </p>
<p>Someone else wrote: "Basically, university administrators are caught between a rock and a hard place. Deep down, they know that these rankings are largely meaningless, based on “physical looks” more so than quality of instruction. However, they also know that the uninformed general public places a great deal of weight on these rankings, thus they also rely on these “fabricated” rankings to help boost applications and the quality of student seeking enrollment in their prestigious institutions."</p>
<p>That's why I'd love to see it all come crashing down.</p>
<p>"Dying is easy,comedy is hard."-- Peter O'Toole as Alan Swan in My Favorite Year, 1982.</p>
<p>I am sorry WashDad, I couldn't resist.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>...asking whether they would be willing to pull out of the U.S. News survey, stop filling out part of it, stop advertising their ranking or, most important, help come up with more relevant data to provide as an alternative.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Provide an alternative? Sounds like these guys are not opposed to the pernicious effects of rankings in general so much as they are opposed to rankings in which they don't score well. I'm sure that whatever "more relevant data" they come up with will portray themselves in a very favorable light.</p>
<p>it'll be fun to see how it plays out. </p>
<p>However, I don't see anything having to do with ethics with respect to SLC. Its USNews study, and they can set the rules of their game. They told SLC upfront what they were thinking about doing about SLC next year sans data, and the likely result. If SLC doesn't want to play the game of a private magazine publisher, they don't have to. I'm sure we have some social scientists on this board that can comment on the statistical validity of a one SD decrement, but it is a statistical argument, not ethical. Again, USNews made an offer to SLC which they can accept or reject (a la Reed).</p>
<p>btw: I applaud SLC for dropping the SAT -- it doens't add value to them, so they are saving kids money from sending scores.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm sure that whatever "more relevant data" they come up with will portray themselves in a very favorable light.
[/quote]
Exactly. Hypocrites. Without USNews, most of these schools would be completely obscure. The administrators are more than glad to get website hits or applications from USNews attention, though. They just act like spoiled children if the methodology used doesn't bump them up in the rankings. </p>
<p>USNews is a good starting point; an easy one-stop site for data & links to hundreds of very diverse schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
U.S. News now plugs in whatever data it can find for nonparticipants. "They won't let you quit," Drew president Weisbuch says of the magazine's data collectors. "I would spell it U.S. N-O-O-S-E."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>USNWR also makes up data that it cannot find, at considerable penalty to those who buck tradition.</p>
<p>I'll bet that the manufacturers of -- say -- poorly-ranked toaster ovens feel much the same way about Consumer Reports.</p>
<p>(Which, now that I think about it, is fully capable of the same sort of smug, self-consciously superior tone assumed by these schools who feel terrorized by a big, bad newsmagazine.)</p>
<p>
What's good can always been improved. The USNWR rankings are fairly useless in my opinion- do I really care about the 7.5% of the ranking that's based on "ranking" minute differences in test score ranges?</p>
<p>The flaw of US News is that it attempts to force a one-size-fits-all ranking on its users. I propose a ranking system similar to that of <a href="http://www.phds.org/rankings/%5B/url%5D">www.phds.org/rankings/</a>, which would allow users to create their <em>own</em> ranking based on how they weight different factors.</p>
<p>Like many, I used the US News rankings as a reference...just that, a reference. Understand that they don't account for every factor that may or may not make a school rank high on your personal list.</p>
<p>Actually, I am not sure I understand why Drew's president is unhappy. A USNWR ranking of 69 seems about right for a college with basically 1200 SAT students and an admissions rate of over 60%. It seems that Drew should take a look at its admission procedures instead of worrying about the USNWR ranking. With a yield of only 16%, Drew clearly has some issues.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I'm an alum interviewer/recruiter for Yale -- not that poorly served by the USN&WR rankings. It was #1 my graduation year. Yippee...</p>
<p>However when I go to college nights or speak w/prospective students and families I see the results of the frenzy which I mostly lay blame at the rankings system. I tell all my audiences that if they DON'T get into Yale (which statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority of them won't), that I'm honored to be speaking before them as they & their kids are going to be enjoying 4-5 years of great excitement and fulfillment whereever they go. I truly believe this. </p>
<p>While polite, I almost feel that they're saying back to me: "Yeah, yeah, get onto the part about how much my kid's SATs rank with the other applicants!!!"</p>
<p>Information about relative strengths is good but the rankings really hurt the absolutely excellent schools ranked from 20-100, I feel. The top 20 or so are flying high -- no need to explain themselves mostly. However, you can't tell me that if I had gone or my kids go to a school that's ranked 60, that they're destined to a life of mediocrity. It's what you make of it and we live in a country with many institutions that can serve willing, motivated and intellectually curious people EXTREMELY well.</p>
<p>Having graduated from New Haven, I know that the conferring college is only a tiny measure of the person. I wish more of society would feel the same.</p>
<p>Am I fighting a Quixotic battle here? Just my two cents.</p>
<p>Note that Tony Marx of Amherst also made comments in the same article. It is hard to imagine that Amherst is a college that needs USNews or has complaints about its ranking as suggested here These college presidents are not complaining about their own ranking but in what the ranking is doing to higer education institutions in general. These people do care about higher education and missions of their colleges.</p>
<p>warbler, that is an awesome resource!</p>
<p>T26: With over 3000 U.S.colleges to choose from, I'd hardly call those ranked 20-100 mediocre.</p>
<p>"Read about what happened to Reed"</p>
<p>What happened is that applications (and the resulting selectivity) and fund raising are way up since Reed pulled out of USNews. There is not necessarily a cause-and-effect here, though some believe there is (I'm one). It would appear that the evidence is scant that pulling out is dangerous.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I often hear how important this list is, and for quite awhile I have just dismissed it as hype. But now I wonder...</p>
<p>I have never seen the full USNews ranking, but only the list they publish online. It provides little value to me, except to allow me to jokingly debate with my son about which school is "obviously number 1. (I mean, hey, look. Its right there! - LOL)". How is it that this list gets to crown the "best" school, when "best" can change from department to department and even from professor to professor?</p>
<p>Here</a> is a school that I think very highly of. I've pushed it each year for the last two years (so far to no avail). I have good info on the school, including stuff on many of its teachers and how they are perceived by students. When it comes to scholarship effectiveness, I'd put it up against any school, depending upon the student. But I don't think it is on USNews' list at all. I once read somewhere that USNews used to consider the school a "third tier" institution, which strikes me as ridiculous.</p>
<p>I wonder if the list is really "all that". I know what we hear, anecdotally, about its power. But has anyone read anything about just how authoritative the list really is among students?</p>
<p>T26E4, To be fair to the "frenzy" parents, institutions such as Yale are not without blame. You can't deny that "marketing strategy" is not an agenda with these institutions. For example, Yale sends out e-mails to a selected group of students for college night events rather than simply posting them at high schools; Yale sends out unsolicited brochures to selected students in part to solicit more applicants etc.</p>
<p>"Having graduated from New Haven, I know that the conferring college is only a tiny measure of the person. I wish more of society would feel the same." I absolutely agree with your statement here. I don't blame Yale for graduates such as George W. Bush.</p>